Falling.

Its often hard to let go. Something about the human personality that really likes to save things...for years. You begin to wonder why that is when you start to sort through your stuff only to find an empty candy box to reminisce and then throw it back into the pile of Keeps. Why not throw it away? Then before you know it, you look back at your progress to see all the old St. Patricks day cards, boxes and attractive tissue wrap are stacked in a large pile hoping to last a little longer with the dust bunnies in your closet.
I'm a pack rat. Sometimes I could be considered a hoarder when I was going through a chest that I own and out poured dozens of cross stitch patterns and materials. You know what? I don't even know how to cross stitch. For some reason I must think to myself that one day I will become a cross stitch pro just like someday I will use the crystal healing book my friend Melissa gave me for a present one year.
When do you start being honest? For the last couple of years, I think this issue has really hit home for me. Material objects really shouldn't mean that much to a person but they do. Something so manufactured if given from someone else could almost represent that person that has given the gift. After Al died, everything he gave to me broke and had to be thrown away. The television he bought me the Christmas before he passed away the repair men in my old apartment broke while fixing the ceiling. The car he gave me for my high school graduation became a crunched up can that probably sits in a junkyard. Just the other day, our house dog Ruby managed to get a hold of the baseball my dad and I used to play catch with and chewed it to pieces until just the tiny rubber wires stuck out to look somewhat like a troll doll. My initial reaction was to be really depressed. Slowly, it was like he died all over again with each event. But you get over it and you realize, That's life and really all anything is....well, is stuff.
So with this new move I started being completely honest. Am I really going to wear this hippy skirt from high school? Probably not. Coming across another christmas persent I received from Al, a camcorder that I unpacked and held for a while. He had bought it for me when I started college and I wanted to be a film director. I started to remember all the stupid movies I made that weren't really movies but just my friends and I doing really embarrassing things in front of the camera.
"I'm never going to use this again."
I've gone through this with my camcorder before. For years it just sits and waits until I accidentally come across it to brush the dust off of it and then put it back. I don't want to part with it because I feel that if I keep it maybe it can bring back that whole year someday. Last night I decided I'm ready to let go. This morning after an early morning jog I put it up for sale on craigslist. That along with several other heaping bags that are going to the goodwill I actually do feel a million times lighter. Not only that it has made the move a lot easier.
Today I am happy for being able to let go.